Saturday, December 17, 2016

Naver "Star Search" K-pop idols info service updated

Naver recently expanded their Star Search (네이버 스타검색) service to include a much wider variety of popular K-pop stars. This feature displays infobox results with immediate information when you do a Naver search for the group or artist name, including their recent Naver V LIVE videos, Naver Starcast appearances, high def photos, and schedules, for 490 groups and artists.

Think about how Google returns "Knowledge Graph" cards when you search for certain important names, and it returns info on the star, movies they are in, etc. It's basically the same.

The list of groups this feature currently supports can be found here (in Korean).

Example: Twice's Mina

Here's an example.

Here's what the Naver results look like when searching for Mina from the girls' group Twice:

Naver search results for Twice's Mina

All her basic information is there, including links to her profiles and an interactive list of albums. This bright pink color and the prominence of that "See more" button there indicate that I struck gold, and hit on a StarSearch supported artist.

That's pretty impressive. A comprehensive timeline of her appearances both in the recent past and upcoming appearances, including real life and on TV or webcasting. You no longer have any excuse to miss out on stalking enjoying your bias.

Other tabs show what other netizens are saying about her right now, and some selected articles about her.

Only for recent idols: not Lee Hyori

Notice no fancy pink border, no "See more..." button, and frankly, no respect. This woman was a goddess, and all you bratty little 2016 girls wouldn't be here if it weren't for her. You can still see some extra info in her normal People Search results.